How Kissinger and Washington Sold Greece Out | New Eastern Outlook

Every government should enact foreign policy on behalf of its people. Every government should determine which nations have acted in friendship toward its people. But in most of Eastern Europe, the best interests of the people are not measured.

As relations in between Greece and Turkey continue to heat up, the traditionally held idea that Washington is a Greece ally needs reexamining in Athens. The release of documents showing former U.S. Secretary of State Henry Kissinger backing Turkish tactics during that country’s 1974 invasion of Cyprus speaks volumes on this. According to the news, Kissinger, who was U.S. Secretary of State at the time of Turkey’s 1974 invasion of Cyprus, told then U.S. President Gerald Ford that “Turkey was entitled to seize part of the island.” Furthermore, the much-heralded Washington policy advisor went further, saying he believed “Turkey would make a better ally than Greece,” in justifying his advice to President Ford.

In the declassified memorandum of conversation from the White House, President Ford, Kissinger, and (interestingly) Major General Brent Snowcroft were the participants. It is fair to say that both Kissinger and Snowcroft are integral parts of the problem U.S. foreign policy has become. Both have advised every president since Richard Nixon, and both are instigators and key figures of the American hegemony. From the Trilateral Commission to the Council on Foreign Relations, both men played key roles in regime change, espionage, proxy wars from Venezuela to Vietnam, and helping American business internets abroad flourish. The discovery of these documents should be a wakeup call to every Greek. The message contained in them is just that pointed – America has no friends abroad, only levers. This is evidenced where Greece is concerned by the Truman Doctrine and foreign policy ever since.

For those unaware, Operation Attila was launched by Turkey on 20 July 1974, following the Cypriot coup d’état on 15 July 1974. The coup by elements connected to the Greek Military Junta gave the Turks and the American administration the green light for driving a stake through the heart of Greece’s so-called “Regime of the Colonels.” But the wider story, the role of the CIA and American leadership, is a subject for another paper. Kissinger’s and Washington’s role then,